Barrettes, low-rise jeans, layered tanks – the early 2000s fashion trends were colorful and quirky, led by their staple brand, Coach, with monogram bags and wristlets galore. As fashion trends have come and gone throughout the years, Coach has slowly but surely strayed from the limelight. Its high popularity featured in the 2000s faded drastically as they could.

Until now.

Coach is making a comeback.

In today’s digital, fast-paced marketplace, branding is crucial to catch consumers’ attention, and social media serves as an essential marketing tool. For the past decade, Coach’s team has not kept up to speed with the rise of social media. Now, they are rebranding themselves as more classic and more high-end than ever before, finally using this modern tool to their advantage. With a whopping 5.1 million followers on Instagram and 173.8k followers on TikTok, Coach is effectively marketing their new products and entering the modern fashion world.

The key to Coach’s new branding is pairing the variety of products they offer with various known-celebrities, influencers, and rising artists. From Paris Hilton to Michael B. Jordan, Megan the Stallion and Jennifer Lopez, Coach is showing just how versatile their brand can be. Take a look at their Instagram feed; the variety of talent, age, and personalities representing their brand is hard to match. By associating their products with various people of different fame statuses, styles, races and genders, Coach shows how diverse aesthetics and identities can align with their brand’s image, therefore differentiating themselves from competitors like Kate Spade.

Coach is also hopping on the trend of collaborating with brands to further expand their consumer base. Coach and Champion recently collaborated on a line of clothing, purses, and shoes, which was marketed as “celebrating the legacies of two American icons.”

Coach saw an opportunity to capitalize on the growing athleisure trend that Champion already encompasses within the retail market. As we transition out of quarantine and into a somewhat-normal life again, the Coach x Champion collaboration is the perfect balance between quarantine comfort and real style. People are ready to say goodbye to full sweatsuits, but they are not ready to put together full designer outfits. Coach x Champion fills this void.

By making the collection only available for a limited time, the products appear more desirable to consumers. The companies also aligned the collection with up-and-coming TikTok stars such as Wisdom Kaye and Jeffrey Tung, as they hope to reach each others' consumer markets as well as a new generation of young consumers who use TikTok regularly. Their marketing campaign, known as “How to Coach a Champion,” showcased some of the aforementioned TikTok stars styling their Coach x Champion pieces in a fun, fresh setting bringing together Champion’s active style with Coach’s luxury appeal.

Coach has now established itself as a new-and-improved brand among generations of consumers. Their fresh marketing tactics, coupled with their latest timeless pieces, usher in an era of new beginnings for the company founded in 1941. No longer do Coach bags adorn the well-known “C” monogram pattern—they are now sleek, colorful, and modern.

There is no doubt that Coach’s popularity is on the rise. The pandemic was the much-needed spark that inspired Coach’s creative director, Stuart Vevers, to bring the company up to speed.